Appalachian Figures
On an old Knoxville News Sentinel video, an eighty five year old man in overalls sits in his living room with a fiddle tucked under his chin. His bow arm moves with an easy swing that suggests a lifetime of tunes. The caption simply calls him an Appalachian fiddler, but old time musicians around the world know the name behind that bow: Clyde Davenport of Wayne County, Kentucky.
Davenport belonged to a generation of players who bridged cow pasture dances, courthouse square shows, AM radio, LP records, and YouTube playlists. Born in the hills near Mt. Pisgah in 1921 and later rooted in Monticello, he carried a Cumberland Plateau fiddle and banjo tradition that reached back to the nineteenth century into the twenty first.
For historians, he is not only a beloved musician but also a remarkably well documented one. Fieldworkers recorded him in homes, churches, and parks. Archivists saved his tunes to tape and disc. Record labels issued his fiddle and banjo work on LP, cassette, CD, and digital release. When we listen closely to those primary sources, we hear both one man and an entire regional soundscape.
Blue Hollow Childhood And A Homemade Fiddle
Clyde Thomas Davenport was born October 21, 1921, at Mount Pisgah in south central Kentucky. He grew up in Blue Hollow in Wayne County, on the western edge of the Appalachian highlands where the land tilts toward the Big South Fork of the Cumberland River.
Music ran through his family. His father, William Francis Davenport, and his grandfather, Francis Marion Davenport, both played fiddle, and the boy listened intently. Jeff Todd Titon, who spent years visiting the Davenport home, later wrote that Clyde’s repertory drew heavily on family tunes and on older local fiddlers whose memories reached back before the Civil War.
Davenport himself remembered the ache of wanting to play. In one oft quoted passage he said, “I wanted to play the fiddle so bad I could not stand it,” describing how he improvised instruments out of whatever the farm offered.
According to the National Endowment for the Arts, when he was nine “Davenport made his own fiddle from barn boards, using hair from his family’s mule for bowstrings.” That homemade instrument, and later a wagon wheel rim banjo he built around age eleven, were not crafts fair novelties. They were the working tools of a boy determined to join the local dance music.
On weekends he walked miles into Monticello to hear Dick Burnett and Leonard Rutherford play on the courthouse steps, studying their smooth fiddle and driving banjo as carefully as any conservatory student with a score. Though no one sat down to formally teach him, he absorbed the Burnett and Rutherford sound and filtered it through his family’s tunes and his own sense of rhythm and tone.
Making A Life On The Cumberland Plateau
Like many men of his generation, Davenport’s adult life mixed farm work, wage labor, and service. The NEA biography notes that he served in the Army during World War II, worked in Indiana auto factories, farmed after returning to Kentucky, ran a truck stop, and at various points made and repaired fiddles full time.
Local histories and family recollections add the quieter details: shifts in small factories, odd jobs around Monticello schools, long days that left just enough evening energy for a few tunes in the kitchen. In the process, his home on the Kentucky Tennessee border became a kind of informal conservatory. By the late twentieth century, old time musicians were making pilgrimages to Monticello to sit at his table, trade tunes, and maybe come away with a repaired instrument.
Davenport rarely sought contest ribbons or professional status. The Tennessee Arts Commission’s folklife profile emphasizes that he preferred to play at home, at local events, and at community festivals, keeping his music grounded in the social settings that had shaped it.
Tunes Older Than The Highway
From those settings he built a repertory that easily ran into the hundreds. The NEA cited a catalogue of more than two hundred pieces, including both widely known standards and rare local tunes with deep historical roots.
Many of the tunes he carried came from men born before the Civil War. One Field Recorders’ Collective description notes that he “learned most of his fiddle tunes from old men born before the Civil War,” some of whom had never made commercial recordings. Through Davenport, their versions entered the modern old time canon.
Some pieces, like “Five Miles From Town,” “Flatwoods,” “Callahan,” and “Jenny in the Cotton Patch,” have since become jam standards, often traced explicitly to his playing in tune books and on teaching sites. Others preserve specific local memories. “Zollie’s Retreat,” for instance, recalls Confederate general Felix K. Zollicoffer, killed at the Battle of Mill Springs in neighboring Pulaski County.
Davenport’s style balances that historical weight with physical ease. Listeners often describe his fiddling as smooth without being slick, rhythmically intricate without feeling busy. He favored cross tunings that let drones ring, and he often played banjo and fiddle versions of the same tune, showing how a melody could shift between instruments while keeping its identity. Banjo Newsletter devoted a feature to his right hand, analyzing his drop thumb patterns and the way he folded syncopations into tunes like those on the Puncheon Camps cassette.
Monticello Music On Record
For many outside the plateau, the first introduction to Davenport came through commercial and semi commercial recordings that are themselves primary historical sources.
In the 1970s he appeared with veterinarian fiddler W. L. Gregory on the LP Monticello: Tough Mountain Music from Southern Kentucky, originally issued on Davis Unlimited and later reissued by Spring Fed Records. Tincher’s National Park Service study of Big South Fork music calls Gregory and Davenport successors to Leonard Rutherford, noting how the album recreates the old fiddle and banjo duet sound heard earlier from Burnett and Rutherford.
In 1986 County Records released Clydeoscope: Rare and Beautiful Tunes from the Cumberland Plateau, a solo fiddle album that showcased Davenport’s repertory and style without the distractions of a full band. Tunes from Clydeoscope show up in modern discographies and on teaching sites because they offer clean, focused versions of regional pieces that had rarely been documented before.
Berea College’s Appalachian Center followed with Puncheon Camps (AC 002) in the early 1990s, a cassette that paired Davenport’s playing with notes and cross references to earlier field recordings. The Tennessee Arts Commission’s media list still cites Puncheon Camps, and tune databases use it as a primary source for pieces like “Puncheon Camps,” “Peckerwood,” and “Sugar in the Gourd.”
Ray Alden’s long running visits to Monticello produced another major body of recordings. Field Recorders’ Collective issued Clyde Davenport, Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 (FRC 103 and FRC 104), along with a DVD that captures Davenport talking, fiddling, and frailing banjo on his porch. Titon’s notes for these releases stress both the breadth of Davenport’s repertory and the way his playing invited visitors into a relaxed, conversational groove.
Compilations such as Traditional Music of the Cumberland Plateau, Vol. 1: Gettin’ Up the Stairs and the multi artist Masters of Traditional Arts CD ROM further spread his tunes to audiences who might never reach Wayne County in person.
Fieldwork, Churches, And The Archive Trail
Alongside the commercial releases sits a thick trail of fieldwork that anchors Davenport’s story in place and time.
At Berea College, the Digital Library of Appalachia hosts numerous recordings of his fiddle and banjo playing, many made by John Harrod and others in Wayne County and at Berea’s Celebration of Traditional Music. One entry for “Blackberry Blossom,” for example, documents Davenport’s banjo version recorded March 8, 1981, in Wayne County, Kentucky, and points listeners to the Puncheon Camps cassette for related material.
Other DLA items feature him in duet with W. L. Gregory on pieces like “Ladies on the Steamboat,” or speaking at Berea about “Clyde’s Fiddling Style,” a talk that blends performance with commentary on bowing and tuning choices.
Berea’s Hutchins Library also preserves a large Old Regular Baptist project in which Titon and colleagues documented lined out hymn singing alongside Davenport’s secular repertory. The collection description mentions ninety audio and ten video recordings that include his performances and discussions of his playing between 1990 and 1991.
At the national level, the Library of Congress houses multiple veins of Davenport related material. The Jeff Todd Titon Collection at the American Folklife Center includes sound cassettes, fieldnotes, and photographs of Davenport in Kentucky church and community settings. The Burt Feintuch Collection lists a cassette titled “Clydeoscope” and another labeled “Clyde Davenport Fiddle Solos,” evidence of how his playing circulated among folklorists as a key reference point.
National Council for the Traditional Arts (NCTA) festival recordings capture him on multi artist programs alongside other plateau musicians, while the AFS Folklore Collections authority record for “Davenport, Clyde, 1921” links together Kentucky Folklife Festival appearances and other documentation.
Together these primary sources make Davenport one of the best documented traditional fiddlers in Appalachian Kentucky. They also let researchers trace how his tunes moved from home recordings to festival stages to teaching materials and online archives.
Teaching By Ear: Apprenticeships And Pilgrims
Davenport’s later decades were marked as much by teaching as by performance. The Kentucky Arts Council’s Folk and Traditional Arts Apprenticeship program lists a 1992 93 apprenticeship pairing him with fiddler Eric Eversole, part of a broader push to formally recognize master artist apprentice relationships in the state.
Other musicians learned more informally. Folklorist Jeff Titon has described in his article on “bi musicality” how learning from Davenport meant more than copying notes. It meant absorbing a way of listening, living, and valuing community music making. Cultural organizer and banjo player Sue Massek has spoken of apprenticing under Davenport, among others, while Tennessee Arts Commission profiles point to younger plateau musicians who studied the Davenport repertory through later apprenticeship programs.
Visitors who made the trip to Monticello in the 1980s and 1990s remember a hospitable host who could be both modest and quietly proud. One Field Recorders note recalls Davenport grinning that after seventy years he “should be able to play pretty good,” while still treating his music as a gift to be shared rather than a commodity.
National Heritage Fellow
In 1992 the National Endowment for the Arts recognized Davenport with a National Heritage Fellowship, the highest federal honor for folk and traditional artists. The Heritage Fellows biography highlights the homemade fiddle episode, his years of work in factories and on farms, and his role as a regional hub for old time musicians in central Kentucky.
A decade later, the Masters of Traditional Arts CD ROM and accompanying biographical dictionary likewise placed him alongside tradition bearers from across the country. Alan Govenar’s entry emphasizes the combination of archaic repertory, personal style, and generosity that made Davenport a touchstone for younger players.
“Still Fiddling At 85”
By the time Knoxville News Sentinel filmed its Songs of Appalachia segment, Davenport had already been recorded and celebrated for decades. The video shows an eighty five year old who has slowed physically but still plays with a relaxed authority, talking about his tunes in the same room where he had welcomed fieldworkers for years.
Titon’s Field Recorders essay around the same period describes a steady stream of visitors heading to Monticello to learn from him, evidence that his reputation had become international even as he stayed rooted close to home.
Death And Ongoing Legacy
Clyde Davenport died on February 16, 2020, in Monticello at the age of ninety eight. The National Endowment for the Arts issued a formal statement marking the passing of “Appalachian fiddler Clyde Davenport,” and local obituaries in Wayne County emphasized his family ties and long residence in the community.
In the years since, his tunes continue to surface in sessions, online teaching videos, and new recordings. Modern old time players from Tennessee to Scandinavia work through his versions of “Puncheon Camps” or “Five Miles From Town,” guided by County Records, Field Recorders’ Collective releases, and the Berea and Library of Congress archives.
For Appalachian historians, Davenport offers a reminder that regional music history is not only about commercial stars or big city stages. It is also about farmers and factory workers who made instruments in their barns, walked miles to hear courthouse bands, and later welcomed strangers with tape recorders into their kitchens. Through the dense web of recordings, fieldnotes, and photographs that document his life, Clyde Davenport still sits in that living room on the Cumberland Plateau, bow arm moving steadily, keeping time for anyone willing to listen.
Sources & Further Reading
National Endowment for the Arts, “Clyde Davenport,” National Heritage Fellow biography, and “Statement on the Death of National Heritage Fellow Clyde Davenport,” provide core biographical details on his birth at Mount Pisgah, work life, homemade instruments, and 1992 fellowship. National Endowment for the Arts+2National Endowment for the Arts+2
Tennessee Arts Commission, Folklife Program profile “Clyde Davenport” and related media lists outline his regional significance, discography, and recommended print sources by Robert Cogswell, Bobby Fulcher, Alan Govenar, and Jeff Todd Titon. TN Arts Commission — Folklife+1
Jeff Todd Titon, “Clyde Davenport” essay and notes for Field Recorders’ Collective releases, along with his article on bi musicality, offer interpretive discussions of Davenport’s repertory, style, and role as a teacher, grounded in extensive fieldwork. Field Recorders Collective+2JSTOR+2
Field Recorders’ Collective releases Clyde Davenport, Vol. 1 (FRC 103), Clyde Davenport, Vol. 2 (FRC 104), and the DVD Clyde Davenport (FRC 1004) present primary audio and video from Ray Alden’s long term documentation, accompanied by contextual notes.
Berea College’s Digital Library of Appalachia and Hutchins Library sound archives host numerous recordings of Davenport’s fiddle and banjo playing, including “Blackberry Blossom,” “Cornstalk Fiddle and a Shoestring Bow,” “Blacksnake Bit Me on the Toe,” and Berea Celebration of Traditional Music performances, along with the Old Regular Baptist project collection that documents his playing in church linked fieldwork. Berea+5CONTENTdm+5CONTENTdm+5
Library of Congress American Folklife Center finding aids for the Jeff Todd Titon Collection and Burt Feintuch Collection connect Davenport related cassettes, photographs, and fieldnotes, while the AFS Folklore Collections authority record helps track his appearances across multiple institutional holdings. Folklore Collections+3Finding Aids+3Library of Congress+3
Robert B. Tincher, “The Old Time Music of the Big South Fork” (1980, National Park Service folk life study) situates W. L. Gregory and Clyde Davenport within the broader Big South Fork musical landscape and discusses the Monticello LP as a key document of local fiddle and banjo style. NPS History+1
Monticello: Tough Mountain Music from Southern Kentucky (Davis Unlimited / Spring Fed Records) and Clydeoscope: Rare and Beautiful Tunes from the Cumberland Plateau (County 788) are crucial commercial recordings, frequently cited in tune indices and discographies, that showcase Davenport’s repertory and collaboration with W. L. Gregory. NPS History+2Berea Library Guides+2
Slippery Hill, Traditional Tune Archive, and other tune databases provide transcriptions, tuning information, and discographic references for Davenport sourced pieces such as “Puncheon Camps,” “Peckerwood,” “Sugar in the Gourd,” and “Five Miles From Town,” linking modern players back to his recorded versions. Tune Archive+2Tune Archive+2
Old Time Party’s “Monticello” post preserves a brief first person reminiscence from Davenport about making early instruments and longing to play, giving a rare textual glimpse of his own voice alongside the sound recordings. Old Time Party